~ Joyful, Feminine, Catholic

Ambitious Wife

The ideal wife is ambitious for her husband, not for herself.
Through inspiration she gives ambition to her husband. He is
spurred on to do big things for her and wants no reward other than
her appreciation and the look of pride for him in her eyes. Here
again wives must heed the words of Christ. If they would save their
souls, they must lose them. If they would save their marriage, if
they would have all that goes with a successful husband, they
must lose themselves and their ambition in their husbands.
A wife is on thin ice who is ambitious for herself, the husband
being just the necessary means of realizing her ambition for
wealth or social position. These self-seeking wives are not
interested in promoting the success of their husbands for the sake
of their husbands but for their own sakes. This type of wife is
inclined to overreach herself. By goading her husband on beyond
his capacities she shows her hand to him and loses his love. He
may have to admit that she has a strong possessive love for him, a
love for him for what she gets out of it. But he is not carried into
seventh heaven by this contemplation of his hard, scheming,
driving wife. He begins to feel that he is but the stepping stone for
the fulfillment of her ambition.
An example of a wife over ambitious for herself may help illustrate
the danger of confusing this possessive love for genuine love and
inspiration. The couple met at a large city hospital where the
young woman was a nurse. She held a position of importance and
through the energy of her personality carried considerable
influence. She fell in love with a young medical student. Through
her connections with the staff of the hospital she had her friend
placed with the hospital as a student intern. She promoted him at
every step, even to the extent of considerable financial help. She
hovered over him like a mother bird. Marriage and the release of
her pent-up emotions only seemed to urge her on in smoothing the
path before her coming young doctor husband. She had visions of
his rising quickly to a position of pre-eminence on the staff. She
would be the fashionable wife of the outstanding young doctor of
their community. And he would be all hers. She was still in the
process of pulling strings to make him acceptable to the hospital
which might admit his patients, when he announced determination
to return to his home state. He wanted to begin slowly with his own
feet on the ground, meriting by his own ability and energy what
success would come his way. With great show of reluctance she
acceded to his plan. Back in his home town things did not progress
rapidly enough for her. They set themselves up too elegantly for
beginners. Money was running out, her money, which she had
saved and inherited. She criticized him for not trying harder. He
countered that he could not make patients come to him. After all,
it would take time. Be patient. After four or five months she forced
him to abandon his own meager beginnings and come back to the
big city. There she knew her way around. She would make certain
that the hospital accepted him. During the time of his efforts to
get set up again she prodded him unmercifully. She even
degenerated into a nagging wife.
When they talked to me, he would have no more of her. She was
driving him to distraction. Obviously, she was going to pieces. On
several occasions she had shaken him out of a sound sleep in the
middle of the night to tell him how she had done something for
him over at the hospital. Once she gave him the pre-dawn
information that she had just cleaned the walls of the kitchen. The
implication always was "What are you doing? Why don't you do
something?" She had lost whatever poise she had and was
becoming frantic.
On being asked why he married her, he replied that she seemed to
be capable and efficient. He thought that she would be a real
helpmate during the early, hard years of getting started. Actually
she had never given him a chance, he felt. He could see the
growing contempt in her eyes for his failure to measure up to her
ambitions. He admitted that she still had a queer, possessive love
for him. This appraisal of her mood was correct, for she tearfully
expressed her desire for his return. She wanted him for herself and
was miserable without him. This unfortunate woman did not love
her husband for himself. Proof of this was evidenced by her
attempts to harm him after their separation. She stooped to efforts
at discrediting him in his profession. She had spread stories
damaging to his character. At the same time she pleaded in a
frenzy with me to help her get him back.
It was difficult to explain to this wife how she had failed to inspire
her husband. Had she not done everything a wife could possibly
do to promote her husband? She could not see that her
overmastering ambition was the undoing of her chances for
happiness. She expected and desperately wanted affection. Yet she
drove him on with contempt in her eyes for his inability or lack of
desire to come up to her expectations. Patience was wanting in her,
the patience founded on a love of her husband for himself and not
for what he might do for her. In her life she manifested all the
outward works of an inspirational wife. The inner spirit was
lacking. She married to satisfy her own desires and ambitions.